Iván Fischer: “We go wherever we’re needed”

Named the world’s best by The New York Times, the Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO) is also known for stepping out of the confines of the concert hall in support of important causes, so as to help others access the magic of music around Hungary and beyond. In May, the BFO will be reaching out to play at both the International Pető Institute and the Transylvanian village of Kaplony.

While one month the Budapest Festival Orchestra is playing before of a crowd of 3000 at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, during the next they are giving a concert to 30 people in a Hungarian nursing home, hospital or child-care institution.

Iván Fischer’s orchestra begins another Community Week filled with free concerts. There are many people in the country who cannot afford to enjoy music, to be engulfed by its magic in prestigious concert halls, and so it is for them that the BFO is delivering the experience to their doorstep. As Iván Fischer puts it: “We should support the community’s culture by taking concerts to churches, abandoned synagogues, out to the streets and squares, that is, to every place where music can be of help.”

Over the course of a few days, between May 4th and 8th, the world-renowned musicians of the BFO are going to give concerts at 16 different venues – in ten nursing homes, three child-care institutions and three churches. While the Autumn saw them play in SOS Children’s Villages, they will now be giving Cocoa Concerts in the International Pető Institute and two village schools, in Homrogd and Kozármisleny, located in Borsod and Baranya counties respectively. Their mission will take them to Transylvania for the first time, to give a concert in the Catholic church in Kaplony.

This year, the now-traditional concerts in abandoned synagogues are going to take place somewhat later than normal, between June 2nd and 4th.

A video of the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Community Week from last Autumn is available here.